Ask Matty: Hartikainen is big, but his play has been disappointing so far

Teemu Hartikainen of the Edmonton Oilers battles for a loose puck against the Chicago Blackhawks in an NHL game at Rexall Place on April 24, 2013.Photo by
Perry Nelson

Q: What is the problem with Teemu Hartikainen? He’s been demoted and brought back so many times. I’m sure that’s degrading. Is he not the power forward we all hope for?

Philip Chin

A: I’m not so sure Hartikainen gets it, yet. The Edmonton Oilers are small and not hard to play against on a lot of nights. Hartikainen is a big body with an automatic job if he shows any consistency, but he can’t seem to grasp that he has to play every shift like it’s his last. He needs Ryan Smyth in his ear. He has to clear waivers next season, so I’m sure he has a guaranteed spot on the roster, but for me, he’s been a disappointment. He’s big but not mean. I’m not even so sure the Oilers have to have the mean with the big. What they need is a Blake Wheeler-type who moves his feet, gets in on defencemen, rags the puck but only for a few seconds, gets to the net. His performance has been too up and down for the coaching staff here. He’s a good American Hockey League player. NHL? The jury is very much out on that.

Q: I’m amazed how uninformed and wilfully blind the local media is on Smyth. He’s a washed-up has-been. Make way for the new. Any player would be an improvement. Only positive is he’s such a poor player, he draws away from the liability of Shawn Horcoff and the goal-tenders.

Gerhard Seifner

A: Man, you’re a hard marker. OK, I admit to a blind spot on Smyth. I like the guy. I’ve covered him for almost 20 years. He’s not the player we all knew; he’s 37 years old and there’s a lot of hard miles on that body from standing in front of the net and taking more punishment than just about any Oiler who’s ever worn the orange and blue jersey. He’s slowed down for sure. I don’t know how much gas he has left in the tank. His new general manager, Craig MacTavish, says he’ll be back next year, but his role has yet to be determined. I think you might want to cut Smyth a little slack for those 1,200 NHL games. As for the goalies, I’m not sure what games you were watching. Devan Dubnyk and Nikolai Khabibulin were uniformly very good this season, with goals-against averages in the 2.50 range and save percentages around .920, which is good by NHL standards. The captain Horcoff? He makes too much money for what he is now, a third-line player. His contract’s not his problem; that’s on the people who signed him.

Q: Do you think the Boston Bruins would actually think of trading Milan Lucic after the season? If so, do you think the Oilers should give anything to get him?

Gabor Gyenes

A: I know the Bruins would rather see the schoolyard bully Lucic, who sneers and pushes people around, but he’s been a far cry from that this season. Maybe he’s having an off-year. Maybe he’s had a personality transformation on the ice. I don’t see them trading Lucic. He’s a unique player. Should the Oilers give up anything to get him? No. They have had one big winger, Dustin Penner, who they had to prod to play harder. If Lucic doesn’t want to play that way any longer, do the Oilers want him at $6 million a year? No. Would they trade their seventh overall draft pick in June and another body for Lucic? Yeah, but I wouldn’t give up Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle or Nail Yakupov for him.

Q: What would it take to get the first overall pick in the NHL entry draft?

Stephen Lewyta

A: It’s not going to happen, not with the Oilers and the seventh overall pick, although if MacTavish dangled any of his Fab Five, the team picking first would have to listen. Seth Jones, the Portland Winterhawks defenceman, is the best player in the draft and franchise-type blue-liners are hard to come by. That said, history shows defencemen who go first take longer to make impacts than a Steve Stamkos or a Nugent-Hopkins. This isn’t a year with a (Sidney) Crosby or (Alex) Ovechkin or (Ilya) Kovalchuk at the top of the draft ladder, but teams don’t like giving up their No. 1 picks to fall back to No. 7 without another very good player in the puzzle.

Q: Do you think the Oilers could trade Sam Gagner, Ales Hemsky and a prospect to the St. Louis Blues for Chris Stewart?

Kevin Hoare

A: They could try, but I don’t imagine Blues GM Doug Armstrong would be inclined to listen that long. Stewart is what every team’s looking for, a 220-pound winger with soft hands. He goes into scoring funks, but he had 18 goals and 36 points this year. The Blues stole him from the Colorado Avalanche along with defenceman Kevin Shattenkirk for blue-liner Erik Johnson and fourth-line centre Jay McClement. I know the Blues are worried they don’t score enough off the rush, except with T.J. Oshie, but would they want Hemsky, who has one year left at $5 million? Gagner could be a No. 2 centre and they could move Patrik Berglund, who has a big shot, to the wing, but I don’t see this trade idea being a fit.

Q: Have the Oilers mishandled the injury to Nugent-Hopkins? This player is skilled, absolutely. Can he think the game? Absolutely. Was he physically up to the grind of playing against men who want to hurt you? Absolutely not.

Bob Grier

A: Your points are valid that teenagers whose bodies haven’t fully developed are at risk of injury against bigger NHLers and Nugent-Hopkins says he’s about 180 pounds right now. But he hurt his shoulder while playing junior in Red Deer, not in the NHL. It’s always a tricky line teams and players walk on surgery. The player wants to play, wants to gut it out, doesn’t want to hear about an operating room. The team is looking long-term, too, and doesn’t want to damage an asset by playing a player who’s at risk. But these sort of things happen all the time where players finish out seasons, then opt for surgery and are gone for months. In the case of the Oilers, there are no playoffs. Nugent-Hopkins will have five full months to heal before the start of the season. If he misses 10 games or so, so be it. The Oilers maybe could have taken him out of the lineup 40 games in, but it’s not a big deal.

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